Queen of Shadows (22 page)

Birthplace: Rio Verde, Texas, “though Austin will always be my hometown.”

Favorite instrument: “My first love is my Martin 12-string, but not long ago I got to play a Bösendorfer Imperial Grand, and I think may have found the love of my life.”

Genre: Eclectic, more or less. “Well, I curse a lot and I don’t sing about how much my life sucks without a man. I think music should be about creating something beautiful out of even the worst of humanity. Whatever genre that is, I’m it.”

Plans to record: “I’m hoping to go into the studio this summer, which will be a new experience. I think I’ll always be more of a live performer, though. The audience’s energy is the greatest inspiration I could ever find.”

Favorite Austin restaurant and local beverage: “Take me out to the Texican Café for their frozen margaritas and veggie fajitas and I’m all yours.”

Response to rumors that have her dating the drummer for 3 Tequila: “No offense meant to any of the guys I’ve met in the last few months, but . . . hell no. I’ve been off the market for a while now. I’m waiting for someone extraordinary to catch up with me, and until then, I’m not going to settle for less.”

David didn’t realize how badly his hands were shaking until the last paragraph was impossible to read.

He pushed his chair back from the table and left the server room, taking the
Chronicle
with him back to his suite. He was still staring at her picture and barely nodded to Samuel as he passed.

At his desk, he took out a pair of scissors and cut the picture and interview out of the paper, then dropped the rest into the recycling bin. He crossed the room to the locked cabinet.

Inside, in addition to the Queen’s Signet and everything else he kept safe, was a leather-bound copy of Shakespeare’s comedies; he opened it and tucked the clipping inside, where it rested along with several others like it, mostly paragraph-long announcements of her performances. This was the first one to have a picture with it.

He carefully closed the book and started to lock it away, but one of the clippings slipped out and fluttered to the floor like a fallen leaf. He placed the book on its shelf and bent to retrieve the paper.

He frowned. It wasn’t a newspaper clipping. It looked like a page from a lined journal torn out and hastily folded.

His name was written on it in hurried but precise script.

David shut the cabinet and took the note to his chair by the fireplace. Esther had kindly added extra logs to the blaze to combat the icy January night, and she’d thrown a few sprigs of rosemary in for the scent. It occurred to him that Christmas had passed several weeks ago. He’d been buried in his work, but he vaguely remembered most of the Elite having the night off for something.

He didn’t want to open the note, but he knew he had no choice. His fingers were already unfolding the paper.

The scent that wafted up from the note would have knocked him over if he’d been standing. A thousand blades of longing stabbed him.

Dear David,

I’m going to make you promise I’ll see you again, but I won’t say why. I may not even admit it to myself for a while. But if it’s ever safe . . . come to me. If it takes fifty years, I don’t care. Come to me. Maybe by then I’ll be ready to tell you what I’m too scared to say tonight.

Thank you for everything. I’ll miss you. I know your life is long but please don’t forget me.

~Miranda

He lifted the paper to his lips, closing his eyes, just inhaling the fading wisps of her presence for a moment.

“Soon,” he said to the empty room. “I will see you soon.”

Miranda’s fists pounded into the punching bag, each strike sending a cloud of chalk, or possibly dust, into the air. She ducked backward and kicked, causing the bag to shudder and, on the other side of it, Sophie to adjust her stance to hold on.

“Harder!” the vampire ordered. “Move your feet!”

A few minutes later Sophie stopped her, and Miranda stood panting, sweat running down her face and neck in rivulets. Her tank top was soaked, and she was burning up despite the fact that it was about thirty-four degrees outside and not much warmer in the studio.

“All right,” Sophie said, walking over to the electrical panel and flipping several switches. Some of the lights dimmed and others brightened until the entire room was flooded in simulated moonlight. Then Sophie snatched a pair of crossed swords from the wall and handed one to Miranda hilt first.

Miranda automatically fell into a ready stance, and she sensed Sophie’s approval. She knew that Sophie held back with her—she had to—but it seemed lately that she’d been gradually increasing the force of her attacks, so much so that Miranda went home after every session bruised and sore and cursing like she had their first week.

She didn’t ask why Sophie was pushing her so hard. She didn’t ask Sophie questions; she did as Sophie said and figured out her own answers one step at a time. It was a maddening method, but an effective one, sort of the anti-Socrates.

“Time for the inspirational power chords,” Sophie observed. “Do you want me to sing ‘Eye of the Tiger’? ”

“You’re too young to remember the eighties,” Miranda retorted, earning a snort.

“Fuck, girl, I barely remember
my
eighties,” Sophie shot back. “I went through magic mushrooms like Super Mario.”

With that, she dove in, sword flying; Miranda did her best to parry, making up for the second’s lapse of attention by spinning out of the way. She brought up her blade as she turned, meeting Sophie’s swing with the loud clang of metal on metal.

The sword was familiar in her hand and, according to Sophie, was balanced just right for her size. She didn’t know much about weapons, but she knew it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as half the objects hanging on the walls; it was a step up from the wooden one she’d started on, though, which Sophie said actually made her more nervous than steel, what with the whole stake-through-the-heart thing. Nevertheless, wood was safer for a human than something with an edge. The blade she was using now was relatively dull.

The end was a foregone conclusion, of course. Sophie knocked the sword out of her hand, spun around, and kicked her off her feet; a second later Miranda felt the usual pressure of the vampire’s booted foot on her neck.

Standing on a fallen opponent’s neck was apparently symbolic among their kind, a show of dominance; the Elite hadn’t used it because, philosophically speaking, they were all friends. Miranda had never seen any of them fight an actual enemy. Cutting their heads off didn’t exactly count.

“I yield,” Miranda panted.

Sophie stepped back, lifting her foot and letting her struggle to her feet. The diminutive woman’s expression was as calculating as always. “Not awful,” she pronounced. “You stayed on your feet for four more seconds this time. Keep it up and you might actually beat me in about a hundred years.”

“Thanks a shitload, Mr. Miyagi.”

She let Miranda take a break for once, and Miranda gulped down half a bottle of water and sank into one of the folding chairs on the room’s perimeter. Sophie, nary a hair out of place, wiped the blades of both swords and hung them back in their spots.

“If you’re such a great warrior, why don’t you work for the Prime?” Miranda asked.

“You have a piss-poor memory. Remember what I said about getting involved with Signets? You work for the Prime, you follow his orders and end up taking a stake to the chest before your time. Besides, if I joined I’d have to work my way up through the ranks and what, play second fiddle to someone else when I could be doing my own thing? I’m not really what you’d call a team player.”

“Good point.” Miranda yanked the elastic from her hair and smoothed it out to pull back again. “Lucky for you they don’t have a draft, what with a war on and all.”

“War is for people who believe in something. Me, I believe in drinking blood, fighting, and fucking, in that order. I outlived Auren and I’ll outlive Solomon, too.”

Miranda felt the urge to do something like cross herself. Obviously Sophie saw the flash of anger on her face, because she laughed merrily.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot, Your Highness.” Sophie bowed theatrically, then dodged the empty water bottle thrown at her head. When she straightened, she looked Miranda in the eye, suddenly serious. “You’re not just doing this for him, are you?”

“No,” Miranda said without having to think. “Look, I don’t have any control over the war. It could go on longer than I live. I’m not going to lie around on a chaise longue waiting for my prince to come rescue me from my tower. And if he were the kind of guy who’d ask me to, well, he could go fuck himself anyway.”

Now Sophie gave her a rare, genuine smile. “Atta girl. Now get up—we’ve got to do something about your footwork.”

Feeling like she’d passed some kind of test, Miranda smiled back and did as she was told.

Kat had been out of town for more than a month, so the look on her face when she saw Miranda wasn’t entirely surprising.

“Holy Christ on a tortilla,” the blonde said. “You look awesome!”

Miranda laughed and fell into step beside her. “Welcome back. How was Beaumont?”

“Hell, of course. I hate Houston. Even in the middle of January the place feels like a swamp, and I got stared at from the minute I got off the plane. Dreads and tattoos aren’t the norm over there, did you know?”

“No kidding.”

“Seriously, you look great—have you been working out?”

“Yeah. A lot. I got a personal trainer.”

“Damn, girl. I said you should take a self-defense class, not turn yourself into Linda Hamilton from
Terminator 2
.”

Miranda made a face. “I don’t look anything like that. It’s been a month, Kat. I haven’t changed that much.”

As she said the words, though, Miranda wondered if that was true. She had gained back all the weight she’d lost when she started drowning in her gift, but at least some of that was muscle—she was working out almost every day and all her spare time was devoted to music. She ate like a horse, but to avoid Sophie’s wrath, she avoided most of the junk that she’d stuffed in her mouth the first month back in Austin. She was feeling remarkably well. It was possible that Kat was reacting to her aura more than her physical appearance. That, she knew, was very different than a few months ago.

They walked up the sidewalk toward Kerbey Lane Café, one of their old haunts from college and a popular all-night eatery for the entire city. Miranda had eaten her way through a thousand plates of scrambled eggs and pancakes in the battered green booths of Kerbey and downed about a million cups of coffee during finals. Kat had been with her for many of those cups.

“Okay,” Kat said, pulling her to a halt before they reached the building. “Um . . . please don’t be mad.”

Dread. “God, Kat, what did you do?”

“Well, remember that guy I was telling you about, Drew? The teacher?”

“Tell me you didn’t.”

Kat grimaced. “We were working together on starting the center in Beaumont, and I told him how great you are, and he really wanted to meet you, so I kind of invited him.”

Miranda punched her lightly on the arm—well, she thought it was lightly, but Kat said “Ow!” and flinched. “Kat, I can’t believe you! You know why I don’t want to date anybody right now!”

“So don’t date,” Kat insisted. “Just be friends. Nobody’s going to force you to hop in bed with the guy. I just think you need to get out more for stuff that’s not playing guitar or lifting weights. I just . . . I worry about you, sugarbean. You get all obsessed about things and you . . . get weird and disappear.”

The caring in Kat’s voice eased Miranda’s aggravation somewhat, and she relented enough to say, “Okay, okay. I won’t run screaming. I’ll meet the guy. But I’m not dating him. And if he ends up having a swastika tattoo like that guy you tried to fix me up with two years ago—”

“I had no idea! I just thought he was prematurely bald!”

“—I am going to kill you,” she finished. “Come on.”

Miranda steeled herself as she saw the figure waiting for them outside the café. She rolled her eyes inwardly—anyone with brains would have gone inside, where it wasn’t fifty below.

“Hey!” Kat was saying. “What are you doing out here? You should have gone inside!”

The guy turned around, and Miranda froze. For just a breath, she thought she was looking at David.

He had black hair, and was slender, and wore a black jacket, but as soon as he moved, the similarity ended. There was no preternatural grace, no nobility; just the slightly awkward posture of a man who was nervous about meeting a woman. His features were more angular, too, and his eyes, though blue, were pale and had a gray undertone.

Miranda’s heart still hammered. She had been ready to believe that split-second impression . . . she had wanted to believe.

“Hi,” he said, offering a hand. “I’m Drew. You must be Miranda.”

Miranda shook his hand firmly. “Guilty as charged.”

She made up her mind to be friendly, and over the course of dinner and dessert, she decided to approve of him, at least conditionally. He was well mannered and well spoken, thoughtful, and definitely handsome; he knew music and was enthusiastic about it, avidly listening to her talk about performing. He even had a decent sense of humor.

Kat kept the conversation light, steering around anything potentially hazardous like Miranda’s entire history, her family, or where she’d been last summer. It wasn’t too difficult; since the interview in the
Chronicle
, she’d been recognized in public once or twice, and anyone remotely interested in the Austin scene had at least heard her name by now.